Stage Name

Birth Name

Willie
Covan

Willie
Covan

The
Four Covans

Versatile dancer Willie Covan and his cousin Maxie
McCree started dancing at a very young age with Cozy Smith
and her Pickaninnies on the George Webster circuit in the Dakotas.
As a young dancer Covan worked out many Buck
and Wing and Acrobatic
movements to dance including the "Double Around the World
(aka Coffee Grinder.)" Later as a dance star danced with
Leonard Ruffindoing a elegant Soft-Shoe
routine. Ruffin at the time was considered the better Soft-Shoe
dancer, but Covan could do many other dances as well as the Soft-Shoe
including Acrobatics.

Covan and Ruffin helped define the Class Act team using the Soft-Shoe
as their base, they were so good in fact they got fired from the
Palace Theatre in New York. The Palace was the place to be if
you were good and Covan and Ruffin were good. After they would
perform at the Palace, nobody could go on after them as the audience
booed every act which tried to follow, after shifting them around
in different spots with the same results, they had to fire them.
Same thing happened to them at the Hipodrome Theatre.

By 1921 Willie would meet and marry an Everglades Club chorus
dancer named Florence. Later, and
now a seasoned performer, Covan and his wife Florence joined his
brother Deweyand his wife and became
known as the Four Covan's with Willie at the helm. The Four Covan's
became Headliners at many clubs by 1927 including Sebastian's
Club in Los Angeles, The Orpheum and Keith's Circuits and starred
at the elusive Palace Theatre in New York City which as a dancer,
doing anything at the Palace was a major achievement, let alone
being headliners.

When the Covan's danced, Willie was the star of the show, however
their act was a well planned group effort. None of the performers
ever left the Stage during the act. Their act consisted of 6 parts
with the first being all four Covan's doing a Jazz
number (no Tap) which slowed
to a Tap-Waltz done to a Russian Lullaby tune. This lead into
the others falling back and clapping a rhythm while Willie did
his first Tap and Buck and
Wing solo to a medium paced song called Rose Room finishing
with the orchestra playing half tempo and Willie doing some Amazing
Acrobatics while the others becoming a precision tap ensemble
in a Russian Flair with the whole group finishing with Kazotsky's
in Stop Time (See Russian Dance)
and finally finishing the performance in a Challenge dance among
the group with Willie going last.

Willie, along with his cousin Maxie
McCree and others were one of the pioneers among Acrobatic
dancers, however he loved Tap
Dance the most. Willie would go on to work with and teach many
stars over the years with his first being Mae
West. Others followed such as Vera Ellen, Jeannette MacDonald, Mickey
Rooney, Kirk Douglas, 11 year old Shirley
Temple, Bobby Burgess, Debbie Reynolds,
Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke to name just a few, however
he never got any film credit for any of it. He opened his own
South Central, L.A. Dance studio in CA. and became the resident
choreographer for MGM Studios, Hollywood, CA..

Willie
left a legacy of dance to many thru his innovations, performing
and teaching. Willie passed away in Los Angeles in 1989.